Now what?

It's January 2nd. You've found your word and your label. You've made plans. You've prayed and decided.

But now what?

It's Monday, New Years Eve is over, New Years Day has come and gone. It's back to the "real world" so to speak, so what do you do now?

Do you have a plan?

My word was Intentional. Live intentional. What do I want most out of 2012? I want FREEDOM. I want to live free. I can just picture my arms raised, my heart free and joy flowing from every part of me. So how do I get freedom?

My plan is to study, a lot. Study the Word, dive in to it. Soak it up, chew on a chapter verse by verse. Memorize scripture starting with freedom. Hiding it in my heart so when those chains rear their ugly head I can battle them with the scripture God gives me. So I plan to study, what else?

I plan to do a devotional study with my husband about what family looks like to God, what the purpose of family is in God's eyes. I plan to learn, to understand.

I plan to pray. Not just in the morning, but all day. I want to talk to God continuously. About everything. Every. Single. Thing that pops into my day I plan to share it with Him. Every feeling, every tear every bout of anger whether from my children or my husband or from me, every short fuse every joy filled moment I plan to share with my Father.

I have a lot of plans, all to often I hear people talk about how they make resolutions for the New Years just to break them the very next day. That's why you have to DECIDE. You have to plan. You have to set it in  your heart and your mind to do something so nothing that comes against you in the coming days will tempt you to quit. Take it a day at a time, if you mess up it's ok! the very next minute decide to take up your cross again and keep going.

Ask God to help you make this year different. Live free. Live intentionally.

Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. Galatians 5:1 (msg)

The Sunrise

We had such an amazing day at Church Sunday. The Spirit was moving, God spoke to us and healing happened. God told us He wanted us to choose Him, to choose Life. He wants to show us the sunrise. He wants a new beginning for us. It may take some work but He wants us to come higher, run hard after Him and come higher, raise above this World and everything it has to offer.

I've been struggling latley. My walk seems off. My quiet times are all over the place. There's no set time. I turn my alarm on to wake up in the morning and then shut it off when it goes off. If I don't spend time with God in the mornings my whole day is off. My kids have been extra testy and often times I lose my temper and my control.

In all of the turmoil God still wants to show me the sunrise though, and you know what...I want to see it. I want to claw myself out of this hole and look full on to the thing He has for me. I want to litteraly wake up in the morning and watch the sunrise that God makes for me every morning.

Have you ever heard the saying "put your money where your mouth is"? I want a lot of things but when my alarm goes off at 6 Monday morning am I going to wake up, am I going to get on my knees? Am I going to watch the sun rise?

Counting my blessings today...

1) Hearing God's voice
2) Worship with abandon
3) My Church family
4) Peace in the storm
5) A whole day to visit with my grandma
6) God's provision for Gas and Diapers in between my husband's paycheck
7) Beautiful sunsets
8) Beautiful sunrises
9) Fall Colors proclaiming God's beauty
10) God's love for me, in the midst of my messes
11) Conviction and correction when I've done something wrong
12) Strength for tomorrow
13) "Stop thinking about your past, stop it! I have erased it and I want you to move forward and choose Me, choose Life"

I choose Life, I choose God. I choose the sunrise.

What choices are you making today?

A lesson in roses

I love flowers. They make me happy with their bright colors and gentleness about them as they start growing. We live in town-house/apartment buildings, the lady that lives right next to us has a GREEN thumb. She has flowers everywhere. Every spring she plants them all over her part of the yard and she has hanging flowers. Her house is beautiful. I've tried a few times to mimic her flower planting skills but my husband and I always seem to put way too many tall flowers in our very small flower box, they never turn out right.

One day my husband was working on a house (his job is salvaging old historic houses and refurbishing them) He's very good at it. He was working on a house that had been empty for a long time and had an almost dead rose bush in the front yard. He asked permission then began digging it up. When he brought it home I was less than pleased but I let him plant it.

This was several years ago, the rose bush came back to life and produced some beautiful roses, my husband has a green thumb and knew just what the rose bush needed. This summer has been hot and humid and down right oppressive. It got hot so quickly, my roses took the full brunt of the heat. I thought the bush had died. I was sad and planned to plant some more roses when ever I could find some time, then one day I opened the blinds to the front window and found this...

Little pink roses with several other buds waiting to open. The rain we've had over the last few weeks brought my roses back to life. I was so excited I wanted to share with you. I believe there's a lesson in these roses..

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;

the old has gone, the new has come! 2nd Corinthians 5:17.

It doesn't matter who you once were, that part of you is dead. It doesn't matter what you were in the world, you're dead to the world and being made new in Christ every day. It doesn't matter what anyone from your past thinks of you, God sees you as His most prized possessions, His precious child. His opinion is the only one that matters. My roses were dead, God brought them back. God brought me back too, and I'm going to continue telling the story, I'm going to continue shining my light, just like these roses are going to continue to grow and thrive. They just needed water, I just needed the touch of my Father and the Living Water.

That's Grace.